Former Fiat advisers found guilty of misleading market

TURIN – An Italian appeals court has handed two former Fiat advisers suspended jail sentences and fines for misleading the market in a 2005 stock transaction that secured the Agnelli family's control of the car maker.

Thursday's decision by Turin judges overturned a 2010 verdict by a lower court that had found the two advisers, lawyer Franzo Grande Stevens and former Agnelli family holding company executive Gianluigi Gabetti, not guilty.

Both men, who protested their innocence, were ordered to pay a fine of 600,000 euros ($793,300) each and were sentenced to 1 year and 4 months in jail, although the sentences were suspended meaning that neither of them will spend time in jail.